Glasgow Singers/BBCSSO/Volkov
(Hyperion)
Ilan Volkov's Liszt album with the BBC Scottish Symphony focuses on the composer's major confrontations with mortality. With the exception of the late, valedictory From the Cradle to the Grave (1881), the works here all date from the late 1850s to mid-1860s ? traumatic years that saw the end of Liszt's hopes of marrying his mistress, Carolyne von Sayn-Wittgenstein, and the deaths of both his son Daniel in 1859 and his elder daughter Blandine in 1862. The disc's centrepiece is the uncompromising Three Funeral Odes of 1866, in which ferocious laments for both children are followed by Le Triomphe Fun�bre de Tasse, in which the posthumous reputation of the Renaissance poet Torquato Tasso is taken as a symbol for the collective memories that survive the death of the individual. The Two Episodes from Lenau's Faust, meanwhile, allow us to hear the familiar First Mephisto Waltz alongside its rarely performed companion piece, Der N�chtliche Zug, in which Faust is forced to confront the abysses of his own soul as a religious procession passes him by. The performances are tremendous. Volkov turns out to be a superb Lisztian, alert to the music's anguish and exaltation. The playing is beautifully textured, with a strong sense of technical and emotional limits being broached and sustained throughout. Highly recommended.
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